Readers may recall our annual battle against garden menaces — Doris Doe and the relentless woodchuck family. Last year’s contest ended in a draw. We never cocked the Daisy rifle. We didn’t win. The woodchucks didn’t win. There was nothing to fight over. The rain took it all.

This summer, it’s a different story. Gardens are producing lots of good food. The Hodges have had many perfect raspberries, and others at Friday morning’s Farmers Market in Mexico are presenting tomatoes, beans and corn. Of course, Ray Barker’s cucumber and zucchini crops were early and bounteous, and there is always more.

In keeping with tradition, our garden’s harvest is late and modest, too.

One night last week we enjoyed a meal of the first, last and only mess of wax beans harvested out of our garden, along with the last of our lettuce and, courtesy of friends, baby beets no bigger than my thumb.

Were we dreaming? Was last summer dismal?

Tom Hawley and the National Weather Service office in Gray checked records for “measurable precipitation” in June and July 2009 and 2010.

Surprise! No big difference: 19 in June 2009 and 15 this year.

Rainy days: 20 in July 2009 and 14 in 2010.

What made last summer so damp, so moldy, so buggy was not the number of days it rained, but how much fell. In the River Valley, it was 6.8 inches in June 2009; 4.25 inches this June. For July last year it 8.6 inches; this year it was 3.61 inches.

Let’s hear it for 2010: the way Maine summer ought to be.

No matter what the weather, August is Citizen of the Year Month in Rumford. This year, the Board of Selectmen gave the honor to Myrtle McKenna, stalwart of the Historical Society with wry wit and beautiful soul. Wonderful choice, wonderful woman!

 Linda Farr Macgregor is a freelance writer; contact her at [email protected]